Why Daddy Didn't Like Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve. I’m sitting here in my living room. I’m looking at the tree with the presents piled under it. I’m in my easy chair, facing the fireplace, nursing a glass of eggnog, the non-alcoholic kind. Thank God, I gave up drinking three years ago. The fire is roaring and I feel the warmth from it. I’m listening to the radio. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, our local radio station replaces the usual country and bluegrass with Christmas music.

This is the same room where I’ve celebrated many of my holidays. I live in the house that I grew up in. Sometimes, like tonight, it’s like the place becomes sort of a time machine. At those times, I can relive the past in vivid details. Tonight is such a time.

Christmas Eve. I was five years old. I was pacing the floor, impatiently waiting for Daddy to get home from work. Mommy was sitting on the couch, watching a rerun of The Rifleman on our little black and white TV.

“Honey, you’re gonna be a nervous wreck and I will, too, if you don’t quit pacin’ the floor like a man whose wife is havin’ twins!” Mommy said. She was only halfway kidding.

I sat down on the couch beside her and she tousled my hair. I pointed to the Christmas tree. There were a few presents under there, but that was enough to make me curious.

“We git to open them tonight?”

“After supper, sweetie,” she said. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was growing weary of my childish questions.

“Why can’t you be patient like yore brother Lijie over there?” she asked. Then she gave me a quick hug.

Lijie...I’ve heard that there people who you introduce and there are people who you explain. I reckon my older brother is in both categories.

First off, his name is Elijah Donald Napier. People in this part of Kentucky don’t ever seem to call anybody by the name on the birth certificate. If you’re born Elijan, you become Lije early on. People around here also have a tendency to add a long “e” sound to everybody’s first name, so, Lije became Lijie. I’m lucky, my name is Edward Roland, but when I was a baby, my mamaw checked out a library book about John Wayne. It had one of his baby pictures in there and she said I looked like him, so I’ve been called Duke ever since.

People around here also pronounce people’s names wrong. My family are the Napiers, but they call us Nappers. There was a time when I would get mad about that, but as I have aged, I realize that some battles aren’t worth fighting.

Lijie is a year older than me. At six years old, he still hadn’t learned to talk. While I had started kindergarten the previous August, Lijie had gone to what my parents called “special school”. I never felt shortchanged because my big brother couldn’t teach me things or be my protector like other big brothers could. I There was always a close bond between the two of us and I was always very protective of him. That’s still true today.

Lijie was sitting in the tiny rocking chair that my Uncle Bobby, Mommy’s brother, had made for him when he was a toddler. Lijie was so small that he could still sit comfortably in that little chair. He was rocking back and forth, staring at the lights, smiling broadly, and clapping his little hands. Mommy has always said that sometimes Lijie “went inside himself” and seemed to be visiting his own little world. I have always wanted to go with him on those visits, but I reckon that’s impossible.

“Mommy, can I ask you somethin’?”

She sighed. It wasn’t a happy, contented sigh. It was the impatient kind.

“You know you can, Duke,” she said.

“Why don’t Daddy like Christmas?”

Mommy sighed, but it was true. Daddy never opened presents and he never bought any, not even for Mommy. He never wanted to go to the Christmas play at church. When somebody said “Merry Christmas”, he’d respond with “I thank you”.

“Look, Duke, that’s your Daddy’s business. When he’s good and well ready to tell you about, he will!”

“Don’t you even know? Has he ever told you?”

Before she spoke, I heard that sigh again.

“Yes, your daddy tells me everything! Like I said, he’ll tell you when you need to know, young man!”

I knew that it was time to give up. When she called me “young man”, she wasn’t happy. I could also tell that she was losing her patience by her facial expression. Mommy was really pretty. Daddy always said she looked like Bobbie Gentry. She would blush and say nobody was that pretty. But Daddy was right, she was very pretty. When she was in a bad mood, she would squint her eyes and frown. She wasn’t nearly as pretty when she did that. And when she did that, it was time for me to keep my mouth shut!

Mommy got up from the couch and went to the kitchen to check on supper. I heard her making noises in there and, while she was working, I walked over to Lijie’s rocking chair. I put my arm around his shoulders and gave him a little side hug.

“You ready for Christmas, buddy?” He looked at me with his bright brown eyes and smiled. “I bet at least one of them gifts is for you!”

That was when the door burst open and my father arrived. Daddy was a big man-six foot six with broad shoulders and long arms. He was carrying two objects that I would never be able to carry at the same time. Whatever it was, he had covered with a canvas.

He laid what he was carrying on the floor and pulled the canvas away: there was a red wagon and the thing that I had been wishing for since they arrived at Arbuckle’s Department Store in town- A Big Wheel!

I ran to the Big Wheel and yelled out “Yeehaw!” Lijie squealed and ran to the little red wagon. His face was lit up so much that it put the Christmas lights to shame! Mommy heard the noise and padded out of the kitchen. She looked at the scene and smiled her prettiest smile. She ran to Daddy and threw her arms around him. They shared a big kiss!

“Look at this!” she said. “Since when do you celebrate Christmas?”

“Aww, Old Man Arbuckle gave me a Christmas bonus and, besides that, I’ve seen these two’s faces light up whenever they came in the store and looked at that stuff! Hope you boys like them!” I threw my arms around Daddy’s waist.

“Thank you, Daddy! I love you!” I said. It was strange. I had never been happier, but I felt tears in my eyes.

“I love you, too, youngun. Merry Christmas!”

Like I said, Lijie was the older brother, but many times, he would follow my lead. He let go of his wagon long enough to run to our father and hug Daddy’s leg.

“Hey, Lijie!” he said as he lifted my brother and held him in his arms. Lijie buried his face in Daddy’s neck.

“You alright, Lijie?” Daddy said. “Look at our boy, Rita,” he said to Mommy, “Grinning from ear to ear and crying his little eyes out!”

“Tears of joy,” Mommy said.

“He ain’t ever done that before, has he?” Daddy asked.

“I’ve never seen it,” Mommy said.

And there were tears in my parents' eyes, too.

Daddy gave Lijie one more squeeze and set him on his feet.

“We ain’t done!” Daddy said. He left the house and came back, carrying a large, gift wrapped box.

“That’s for you, hon,” he said as he put the box on the floor.

Mommy got on her knees and tore the paper away. When she had the gift unwrapped,

she was smiling and looked like an angel.

“A sewing machine!” she said, her voice choking with emotion. “ I’ve been wantin’ one forever!” She jumped up from the floor and Daddy got another huge kiss.

We went to the kitchen after that and ate supper. It was stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, green beans, and corn. All the vegetables came from the garden behind the house that my mother had tended all summer. Afterwards, there was homemade gingerbread. I worked up my courage and, as Daddy finished eating his gingerbread, I asked.

“Daddy, I sure do like my Big Wheel and I’m glad you are celebrating Christmas this year, but I always wondered why you don’t like Christmas…”

Daddy gulped down his last morsel of gingerbread and chased it with one last drink of buttermilk. Mommy sighed.

“I’ve been telling him that it was your business, baby,” Mommy said.

“It’s alright, Rita. Boys need to know things.” He looked in my direction, but not directly in they eye. He was staring above my head like he was watching somebody a mile down the road.

“I ain’t sure if you will understand and I’m pretty sure that Lijie won’t. You remember when I took you to the prison to see your Papaw Lyman?”

I nodded. I could picture my grandafather, a skinny man with his grey hair cut like somebody who had just been inducted into the Marine Corps, wearing an orange jumpsuit. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. His hands shook and he stammered when he talked. He seemed very nervous, but Daddy said it wasn’t his nerves that caused those things.

“Well, your papaw ain’t always been a convict. When I was a boy, he worked at the Black Gold Mine out on Cold Creek. The year that I was ten, his union went on strike. They promised the men strike pay, but they didn’t come through, like always.”

“There was no money for anything. We’d have starved, but your mamaw raised a garden in the same spot where your mommy does today. Outside of coal mines, they was no real jobs to speak of back in them days. Your Uncle Leon and Aunt Clairie and me wasn’t expectin’ any Christmas that year!”

“On Christmas Eve, it was in the afternoon. your papaw’s best friend, Warren Wright, you remember we went to his funeral last year? Well, Warren stopped by in his old pickup truck and Daddy said they was a goin’ to town. Me and Leon asked to go with him, but he said it was men’s business and not for boys. Me and Leon played the rest of the day. At the usual time, Mommy made supper for us. Then, we sat at the table and talked. When it grew dark, she lit an oil lamp. She read about the birth of Jesus Christ from the Bible and we sang Christmas songs like “Silent Night”, “Away In A Manger”, and “Oh, Beautiful Star of Bethlehem”. Lord, I can still hear that alto voice of hers.”

Daddy had a faraway look in his eyes. He sounded like he was going to cry.

“Eldridge, if you don’t want to talk no more about it, that’ll be OK,” Mommy said. Daddy shook his head.

“I ain’t talked about it for years and I think I need to!” he responded. Daddy meant what he said. He was using the tone of voice he used when he was telling me about right and wrong. He cleared his throat and continued.

“ I think it was probably an hour later that the front door opened. Daddy walked in and he was carryin’ a big red bag like Santa Claus. He told us that him and ol’ Warren had run across Santa and his sleigh was stuck in the ditch. Santa had asked Daddy to deliver this bag of gifts for him.”

“There was a new nightgown and a bottle of perfume for Mommy, a couple of toy race cars for Leon, a doll and a necklace for Clairie, and for me…”

He choked up. I could see tears in his eyes. He gulped, cleared his throat, and continued.

“For me, there was a brand new baseball and a genuine Robin Roberts model baseball glove!” Daddy wiped his eyes. “The boys around here would play ballgames at a field on Hovie Babcock’s property and I didn’t have a glove. Plus, I listened to ballgames on the radio over at our next door neighbor’s house and Robin Roberts was my favorite. Daddy knew that.”

“Daddy told me that from now on, I could join in when all the rest of the boys had their ballgames.”

“I don’t understand, Daddy,” I piped up. “That sounds like a great Christmas!”

Mommy sighed the impatient sigh again. I only recently have learned when to keep my big mouth shut!

“You would think, wouldn’t ya?” Daddy said. He sighed, but it wasn’t an impatient sound, it was sad. Like when the Kentucky Wildcats lost a close ballgame.

“Next morning, Sheriff Duncan showed up at our front door with Elmer Robinson. He’s Sheriff himself now, but back in them days, he was a deputy and kinda wet behind the ears. They had their guns drawn and said your Papaw was under arrest for Grand Theft. They had already arrested Warren and he had admitted that Daddy had aided and abetted him. We had to give back all them Christmas presents, even my ball and glove!”

I thought about how I would feel if somebody took my Big Wheel away from me. Tears started leaking from my eyes.

“They sent Warren and Daddy away. Turned out they had not only stole our Christmas gifts from Arbuckle’s, they had held up a gas station, too. Since Warren had cooperated and Daddy had used his pistol to rob the gas station, Warren got a lot less time. Warren’s family hired a lawyer for him and that helped, too. But they throwed the book at your Papaw! He’ll die before he ever gits outta there! Mr. Arbuckle felt that they were too harsh with Papaw and that’s why he gave me a job right after high school. I reckon it turned out according to the Good Lord’s plan.

And that’s why Daddy didn’t like Christmas. After that year, he usually celebrated. I think he celebrated mainly to watch Lijie’s face light up. Once you make make Lijie smile or laugh, you want to do it all the time. I reckon you’d say it’s addictive. Better than any drug, that’s for sure.

Lijie eventually learned to talk when he was 12 years old. He still lives with my parents, of course. Eventually, he’ll become my responsibility. I’ll consider that a personal privilege. Like I said, I’ve always felt very protective toward him.

Lijie and my parents will stop by tomorrow evening on their way to church. I have gifts for all of them under my tree. I especially want to see how Daddy likes his gifts. I bought a ball and glove at Arbuckle’s back in the summer. A while back, they had a baseball card show in West Virginia. Robin Roberts was there and I got his signature on the ball and glove. Daddy is finally gonna have his ball and glove for Christmas…

Like the man would say himself, I reckon it turned out according to the Good Lord’s plan!